McDougalls Upper Crust Chicken & Asparagus Pie

Description: Delicious pieces of tender chicken breast with asparagus spears in a creamy white sauce, topped with heavenly puff pastry You can trust McDougalls Upper Crust Pies to be made to the highest quality standards using only the finest ingredients. In this chicken and asparagus pie, pieces of succulent chicken breast and tender green asparagus spears are combined in a creamy white sauce. The generous filling and shortcrust pastry base are then topped with our famous light puff pastry. Cooking Time: 40->45minutes on number 6. Cost: £3.49 from Tesco / Sainsberrys / Asda My Verdict: First impressions were good. This is a chunky looking deep filled pie with a shortcrust pastry top. I had to do a double take when I saw 1/2 the pie (my normal portion size) was 818 calories!!!! That's a lot. I checked the pie at around the 30minute mark in the oven and the crust was already going a bit black, so the cooking time may have been a bit over the top. The pie smelt nice and came out the oven at the 42minute mark. Cutting the pie open, the reason for the high calories was soon apparent. There was a thick creamy sauce inside the pie, bit like a chicken soup. The rest of the contents were generous sized chunks of chicken which were soft and not grisly at all. The asparagus was a little disappointing, being small shoots and quite crunchy. The pastry was flaky and the base was reasonably nice & stodgy. (i like a stodgy pie). All in all the pie was okay but nothing special. I think the pastry / crust and asparagus let it down. I also kept thinking 818 calories should taste better! I`ll rate it at 6/10. I think id prefer chicken & veg next time.